A two-day symposium on Bharatiya Bhasha Pariwar was organised at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata from 9 to 10 December. The symposium was jointly organised by the Linguistic Research Unit of ISI and Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti, Ministry of Education, Government of India. It sought to bring linguists, educators, researchers and policy experts together to deliberate upon two scholarly volumes, Bharatiya Bhasha Pariwar: A New Framework in Linguistics and Collected Studies on Bharatiya Bhasha Pariwar: Perspectives and Horizons. These works propose a paradigm shift in the study of Indian languages by moving beyond colonial linguistic classifications and highlighting commonalities that lead to uniformity in the country’s linguistic and cultural areas.
The inauguration was chaired by Dr Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay, Director of ISI. Dr Bandyopadhyay explained how the symposium seeks to create an extensive glossary of indigenous terms for science education in vernacular languages. This would lead to democratisation of higher education while respecting our rich language heritage. She mentioned how the ISI logo reflects the same value system- Exclusive in quality, yet inclusive in what is studied. Prof. Biswabrata Pradhan, Dean of Studies, ISI Kolkata, highlighted the symposium’s theme of linguistic unity in diversity. He emphasised the relevance of such endeavours in a country as linguistically diverse as ours.
The inaugural session was graced by eminent academicians like Prof. Shailendra K. Singh from North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Prof. S. Arulmozi and Prof. Naresh Annem from University of Hyderabad, Prof. Varaprasad Kolla from Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Raipur.
Dr. Niladri Sekhar Dash, Professor and Head of the Linguistic Research Unit at ISI Kolkata, stressed the significance of existing natural language processing research for AI models in Indian languages. A renowned expert, Dr. Dash pioneers interdisciplinary research in machine learning and linguistics. He and his research scholars have contributed significantly to two scholarly volumes on Bharatiya Bhasha Pariwar.
